Chapter 42: Kairen

Three days had given Kairen the upgrade points needed to purchase his first third tier upgrade, and he had immediately grabbed the monster lure. Now was when the slavers were at their weakest, and constant monster attacks would have the most impact. With Zar and the other mercenaries he had hired present Kairen didn’t think the monsters would actually drive the slavers away, but every minute they spent fighting was one they weren’t focusing on adding more buildings to the Oasis. The upgrade didn’t cause anything to happen immediately, but Kairen was looking forward to the mayhem that would occur over the next few days.

The nomads had left the Oasis more or less intact. They had built their meeting hall and a few storehouses, but their goats and camels were grazing animals, and a free and easy source of feed for them was more important than positioning their tents or buildings slightly closer to the water. While the slavers had brought quite a few camels themselves they had also brought supplies to feed them, for the short time they were there. Already Rao and two other pathfinders that Zar had acquired had been sent out. Rao had the longer journey ahead of him, charting the path between the Oasis and Savar, with the intent of creating a trade route for illicit goods that didn’t pass through Luxor. The other two pathfinders weren’t nearly as capable and were relegated to taking most of the camels back to Luxor to resupply. A part of Kairen hoped they got attacked by monsters on the way there, but he knew he was being unfair. Neither of the two pathfinders had done anything evil as far as he knew, and likely had been persuaded to come along on this expedition for money more than any actual desire to see slavery prosper.

With most of the camels gone and with enough grain to feed the rest for months it didn’t take long for an engineer to divide the Oasis into lots, with the grid of projected construction expanding out into the desert.

“Are you sure that all this is necessary?” Zar asked, gesturing at the rope tied between long poles anchored out in the sands.

“I don’t tell you how to kill monsters, and you don’t tell me how to build buildings.” The engineer snarked back, confident in his expertise. Not wanting to push his employer too far, the man began to explain his reasoning.

“The Oasis is filled by a natural source of magic. This magic isn’t infinite, but allows for far more water to be drawn from the Oasis than would be possible from any natural source of water. My tests yesterday with men drawing as much water as possible revealed that the magic does it’s best to keep the pond filled, but can be worn out if sufficient water is drawn from the pool. A hydromancer might be able to give you a better answer or a more technical explanation of what is happening, but for my purposes I was able to assume that 50,000 gallons of water can be drawn from the oasis on a daily basis. The oasis holds more than that, giving you some leeway on when the water is used, but that fifty thousand gallons is the number I’m basing my calculations on. Assuming that you don’t invest in agricultural pursuits, that is enough water to support a population of ten thousand or so. A bit less depending on how many baths you want your servants to draw you, but it means that instead of drawing up plans for a small settlement that will have to be torn down in a few years I would rather build with the assumption that eventually this settlement will reach that size. That means dedicated roads, a large marketplace, sanitary areas, and a few spots set aside for public buildings.”

The engineer pulled out a set of blueprints that had seen a large amount of revision, pointing out the features as he named them he then pointed to a thick ring surrounding the pool. “I also have a proposal for a secondary set of walls to be built around the oasis. While it is difficult to truly steal a significant amount of water, a defensive structure would help keep out saboteurs and would increase your ability to control the sale of water from the Oasis.” The planner chuckled. “It’s hard to charge for water when they can simply walk to the other side of the pond and fill their containers without you stopping them.”

“The Oasis has some form of cleaning magic that should make sabotage less of a threat, but I do see your point about the value of a defensive wall. At the moment it is unneeded, and it will likely be more effective to simply post a guard for a good while, but please keep those walls in your long-term planning.” The engineer nodded and made some notes on his plans.

Kairen couldn’t read the notes, but the building overview was obvious enough to get a general idea of what the man was planning. It was an impressive sprawl of structures, some large and opulent for the rich upper crust, others built to function as both shop and home for the poorer merchants and craftsmen who would eventually be lured with the promise of a better chance at success, and finally there were the slave houses. Large structures more concerned with efficiency than any sense of aesthetic or comfort, most were planned to be added to the outskirts of the future city, but two had already started construction; one next to the town square and the other attached to Zar’s home.

The planned building that interested Kairen the most was the schoolhouse. It would take a while before the population of rich children present at the Oasis was large enough to necessitate it, but given Zar and the engineer’s demonstrated written fluency Kairen was positive that writing and reading would be on the syllabus. Learning to read and write had suddenly become more important than ever to Kairen, for one simple reason.

“What other upgrades are available?”

“Can you show me the next tier of upgrades?”

“Give me something to work with, you stupid screen!”

Despite many attempts at creating different requests, Kairen was unable to make the screen display the fourth tier of upgrades. He knew there was something there. His screen had lines connecting the upgrades in each tree, and those lines continued up past the third tier, but nothing Kairen had tried was working. Not only would learning to read give him a better idea of what his existing upgrade did, but it would also hopefully help him figure out what he was missing.

With that said, unlocking the fourth tier was a longer-term goal. The third-tier upgrades were expensive enough, and the slavers were not in the habit of leaving various offerings at the altar. They hadn’t bothered to tear it down either, but Kairen didn’t see them forming the same relationship he had had with the nomads. It was difficult to reach out to people who you suspected were only interested in exploiting you, and Kairen was positive that a resource was all Zar saw him as, and was mostly sure that the rest of the slavers would follow Zar’s lead on the matter. Even without that extra source of upgrade points Kairen’s daily income had increased, likely due to all the construction that was occurring. Even though less people were present in the Oasis now, what they were doing would have longer term effects than simply spending their days experimenting with gardening and working in a relaxed manner like the nomads had done. To be fair, Ade and the Nomads who had gone with him had been working hard, they simply hadn’t done so where Kairen was able to take advantage of their efforts.

Even with a hundred upgrade points a day to work with, it would take months for Kairen to purchase the upgrades available to him, slowly increasing his capacity as he went along. The elevating costs of each upgrade would slow things down, and Kairen had a suspicion that he was missing something fundamental to the system. So far Kairen had been able to access the next tier after purchasing enough levels of the previous upgrades, but he didn’t think the pattern would continue to work as it had for much longer. Given the first three tiers had started out with costs of 50, 300, and 1,000, Kairen expected the fourth tier to start at no lower than 1500 upgrade points, and likely higher. 2,000 was his more realistic guess as to what a fourth-tier upgrade would cost, but the price alone shouldn’t be a reason to hide the upgrades. While learning to read would help, there was one other piece of the System that Kairen hadn’t really tested. Only once had he risked his upgrade pool overflowing, but the system had forcibly grabbed his attention and pushed him to choose an upgrade before anything happened. It would take a while to get the points needed, but Kairen was curious as to what exactly happened if he didn’t choose anything.

Ten days was a long time to wait, and harassing Ramses only had so much entertainment value, usually governed by how long it took the lazy mage to call it quits for the day and go back to relaxing. Having Zar present pushed the mage to work harder than he would have otherwise, but while the mage respected and deferred to Zar, his relationship with the adventurer was not that of a simple subordinate. Kairen’s best guess was that the pair had been adventurers together at a lower rank, and had kept that relationship alive even though they went down different paths in life.

Finally, ten days had passed and the moment of truth had arrived. Fortunately for Kairen he reached his maximum capacity shortly after most of the slavers had retired for the night, making it less likely for them to notice any unexpected changes that might occur. The feeling of bloated fullness was just as uncomfortable as the ghost remembered, and even though the screen had yet to make an appearance Kairen was already itching to select an option and get it all over with. Grinding his teeth, he began to pace, using the movement to help distract himself from the feeling of wrongness that was beginning to permeate his existence.

Kairen had been somewhat distracted with the party at the time, but he felt like it had been a far shorter interval between the moment he began to experience discomfort to the time that the screen automatically appeared. He wasn’t sure what the exact cause was though. It was possible that the festival going on and the extra upgrade points it had provided had pushed him to the point of no return more quickly. It was also possible that the additional distraction of eating for the first time in a while had helped Kairen ignore the first moments of pain. Or if the sensation was tied to his upgrade pool, it was also possible that having a larger pool dragged the process out more than the boy would have liked. Kairen couldn’t figure out which of those ideas was right at the moment, but made a mental note to try and test the limits late.

Much like last time the window appeared, the options began to pulse. There were far more of them this time, and instead of two lights flashing back and forth in sequence the glow appeared to be a spot of light that was running in circles around the screen. It skipped over the locked pool upgrade, but every other choice had its turn in the spotlight.

It took a few moments of the light moving around to realize that it wasn’t regular. Last time both options had been the same level, something that was no longer true. He had multiple options at different levels, and the light seemed to pause a little bit on the upgrades that Kairen had already invested into. Not enough to make the outcome inevitable, but enough that the random choice would still favor keeping the Oasis focus on some areas over others.

The intensity of the light continued to increase, and the physical pain suddenly was joined by a mental pressure, despite his intention of simply observing the procedure, Kairen couldn’t help but fight back against the invasion of his will. Whatever was happening was a violation of his will and he did not like that. For a moment it seemed like he might be successful at throwing the mental intruder out, only to suddenly collapse both physically and mentally, the strain from fighting surprisingly draining. With an inaudible click Kairen could feel the upgrade choice being made for him, and the screen vanished, taking the pain with it.